A Pair of Two Billion Dollar Stories

I've been quickly reading the late Don Hewitt's book, "Tell Me A Story" this week since his death last Wednesday morning. For anyone in television news, reading a book ABOUT television news is like being a kid in a candy store. I read those books so quickly, and am fascinated by his stories of how television news was created, by Don Hewitt in the '40s and '50s. Fascinated by the story of how Douglas Edwards used to read the evening news off cue cards held right next to the camera, until a gentleman named Irving Kahn showed Don Hewitt his new invention, a "teleprompter" which could superimpose the words right over the lens of the camera!

Thank you, Irving! You can never begin to imagine my gratitude for your invention!

Anyway, another factoid from the creator of "60 Minutes" is that this landmark CBS's Sunday night program has generated more than $2 billion dollars of revenue for CBS over the 35 years he presided over it.

Then I read the newspaper article about how the "Cash for Clunkers" program has burned through two billion dolllars since it was created in the last two months. Are we talking about the same amount of money here?

What it tells me is there remains such an huge gap between the profits American companies can generate.. and the money Washington can spend.. and the time it takes to spend it! I just had to ask for your thoughts on this! Ralph

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